Life Without Parole: A Kate Conway Mystery (9 page)

He shifted in his chair. “It was bad. Jenny, that was my wife, she and I had been talking to my neighbor Cody.” He stopped. Cleared his throat. “He wasn’t just our neighbor. He was also our dealer. Meth was pretty new in my circles back then. Been around a couple of years, but it was getting popular and we were into it. I can’t exactly say what happened that night, or really why it happened, but when the police come to the door because of some neighbors who heard screams, I had a knife in my hand and Jenny was dead. Long streaks of her blood were on the linoleum, like she’d been crawling away and just didn’t make it. It took me a while to realize why. My knife had blood on it. Her blood.”

“You stabbed her eighteen times.”

“That’s what the police said, ma’am.” He breathed deep. “Sorry. That’s what the police said, Kate. She was stabbed eighteen times, all over her body. At my trial, Cody said that I was screaming at her and I picked up a knife off the kitchen counter and just started cutting into her. Six stab wounds in her stomach, eight in her chest, and the others were in her arms and face.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I don’t recall doing it.”

“You murdered your wife and you don’t remember it?”

He let out a long breath. “Have you ever done drugs, Kate?”

Before I could answer he shook his head.

“No, you probably haven’t,” he said. “You look like you got some sense. Drugs cloud things, make you remember things differently than they actually occurred. My actions led me here, so regardless, I’m responsible.”

“
Did Jenny say anything while this was going on?”

“Not that I recall. But after she tried to get away from me, Cody said I stabbed her a couple more times. The ones that did the most damage. She stopped moving and she ended up lying in the corner of the kitchen. That’s where she died. But I do remember that she put her hand out like this.” He reached an arm out toward me, and then let it drop to his lap.

“Was she trying to touch you or shield herself from you?”

His eyes got wet but he blinked away the tears before they could fall. “I’ve asked myself that many times. Either way, I failed her.”

“But you loved her?”

“I met Jenny when we were kids, in the fourth grade, Mrs. Tressel’s class. She had long brown hair and a real pretty smile. We didn’t become friends or nothing for a while. She gave me my first cigarette when I was twelve.” He smiled. “It was my first step on the slippery slope.”

“So she dragged you down?”

His eyes flared for a moment, anger and then embarrassment. “No, Kate. I did not mean to imply that. Jenny was just a nice girl, dabbling like all kids do. It was me that dragged her down. I just wasn’t happy with myself, I guess.”

“Drugs made you feel better?”

“They made me feel better. They made me feel nothing. And then they ended me.”

That was a nice line that would fit perfectly with the story I was concocting. Tim was my “life that was wasted because of drugs” character, an almost archetypical prison type. What I needed was for Tim to have a wasted talent or a plan he’d had to give up. Something grand enough to make his current situation all the more tragic.

“What were your dreams, Tim, before the drugs?”

“Aside from being a pitcher for the Cubs?” he asked. He looked down at his hands, breaking his gaze for the first time. “I used to like music. I played piano and violin and a little guitar.”

“So you wanted to be a musician?”

When he looked back up, his expression had changed. He looked excited, almost like a kid. “Not a rock musician or anything like that.
I wanted to be in an orchestra. My mom and I used to watch the Boston Pops on TV every Fourth of July. You know, with the fireworks going off. I thought for a while I’d get good enough to play with them,” he said. “You play an instrument, Kate?”

I shook my head. Tim was playing his part perfectly, so I needed to play mine. “I don’t have any talent for it,” I said. “But if I did, I think I would like to play the violin. It’s so versatile.”

“It is.” His smile widened. “I like country about as much as I like the orchestra stuff. I used to play a little bluegrass too. I love the sound of the violin. It’s mournful, you know, longing. And then as a fiddle it’s all playful joy.” He held his hands in the air and played an imaginary violin for a moment. “My folks bought me one when I was eleven. I used to carry it with me to parties. Jenny loved it. She’d dance around when I’d play that thing. Even when she was thirteen, and all skinny legs and long hair, she looked like a goddess.” His voice lowered to a whisper, as if he were talking to himself. “It’s a gift to meet the love of your life that young.”

The obvious joy he felt at remembering his life before it got so messed up saddened me for a moment. Frank and I had met in high school, a thought I pushed away as quickly as it came.

“You must miss her.”

He cocked his head to the side and considered the question for a long time. “I think it would be unfair to Jenny’s family to say I missed her. To look for sympathy because the woman I loved is dead. It might make it seem like I’m not taking responsibility for why she isn’t here anymore.”

We were scheduled to be in the room for only an hour and we’d run out of time. Andres turned the camera off, and Russell put Tim’s handcuffs back on. As Tim was led out of the room, he turned back to me.

“Kate.”

“Yes, Tim.”

“Just between you and me. Every goddamned day.”

I
’d brought the books Brick had asked for, so after Russell escorted Tim back to his cell, he brought me to the visitors area. I left Andres and Victor, who seemed not to be speaking beyond what was absolutely necessary, and followed Russell down a long hallway, through two sets of secured doors, and into a large room that had about twenty metal tables in it. The seats were bolted to the tables and the floor. About half the tables were occupied, inmates on one side and visitors on the other, with guards near almost every group. The room was loud, almost deafening. People were laughing, drinking cans of pop, and eating potato chips and other items that were for sale in a vending machine at the back.

Brick was sitting alone, staring at the floor. When I put my bag of books on the table, he looked up and smiled.

“I got word that you were bringing me my books,” he said. “I didn’t want to believe it.”

He gestured for me to sit, and I did, though I think it would have been more comfortable to stand. The seats were small, round metal stools, cold and hard.

Brick immediately started looking through the bag. I’d brought his entire list, ten books, ranging from the latest Stephen King to a biography on Cleopatra. “Damn,” he laughed. “You got me everything I asked for.”

“Neighborhood bookstore.”

“I can’t pay you back, you know.”

“Give me a good interview.”

“Shit, I’ll tell you anything you want to hear.”

I laughed. “Nice to see I’m not the only one who can be bought.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m working on another show, something I don’t really want to work on, because they’re paying me more than my daily rate.”

“That don’t sound so bad.”

“It’s rich people talking about how rich they are,” I said, glad to
have a place to vent. “It’s going to be one of those ridiculously expensive restaurants. The way they talk about how exclusive it will be, it’s like they’re figuring out who gets a seat on Noah’s Ark.”

“You gotta do what you gotta do, Kate,” he said. “It’s got to be tough, life as a widow. You lose the man you love and have to make your own way in the world. I admire that.”

I don’t generally know what to say to compliments. And since my relationship with Frank hadn’t exactly been a perfect love story, I didn’t wear the title of “widow” too heavily around people who knew me. Sometimes I found myself opening up about my life with virtual strangers—the man at the grocery checkout, the woman who cleaned my teeth—because I could be sad without consequences.

“I miss him,” I admitted. “We were together a long time, since I was teenager.”

“Life’s like that, isn’t it? Something you do as a kid stays with you, defines who you are. It’s not easy.”

“We all have our burdens.”

“You talk to Tim Campbell?” he asked.

“I did.”

“You get what you needed?”

“The start of it. We still have two more sit-down interviews with you and Tim, and we’ve been approved to get footage of both of you in your cells, and at a couple of other spots in the prison.”

“He tell you a good story?”

“Better than yours. He’s more willing to talk about himself.”

Brick’s eyes narrowed. Not angry, but sizing me up. “Yeah, but all I want from you is books.”

As he spoke, a shouting match broke out between two of the inmates. One had apparently brushed up against the other’s fiancée. Guards moved between them, and the men were removed. Their visitors—an older couple who was visiting the man who had pushed his chair, and the fiancée and three-year-old daughter of the other man—were escorted out the visitors door.

“I drove three hours to get here,” the fiancée was saying to the guard. “And I only got to spend ten minutes with him. Can’t you just let things cool down and bring him back for a minute?”

“Not today,” the guard said. “
Next time tell your man to behave himself.”

“If he could behave himself he wouldn’t be here,” she said.

The guard just kept moving her toward the door.

When I looked back at Brick, he was laughing. “Never a dull moment,” he said.

Andres and Victor waited for me by the van.

“Everything go okay with that sociopath?” Andres asked as I approached.

“I was just giving him some books.”

“You don’t want to get too chummy with these guys. They prey on lonely women.”

“We’re back at the restaurant tomorrow,” I said, ignoring him. “Eleven a.m. call. And Victor, I expect you to be on time, with everything in working order.”

Victor frowned, but I could see Andres smiling.

“I’m sorry about the mic,” Victor said. “It just—”

I waved him away. “Things happen; equipment breaks down. It’s just that someone hires me, and I hire Andres, and he hires you. So, what you do reflects on me.” Before he could protest, or break down in tears, I continued. “And usually that’s a good thing, because you’re the best sound guy in the business.”

Andres took a step forward. “Not lately.”

I cut in before things got worse. “I think we’ve made our point.” I glanced at Andres, who didn’t seem satisfied, but there was nothing else I could say. I leaned in and kissed Victor on the cheek. “If something’s going on you want to talk about, I’m here.”

“Thanks, Kate,” he said in a stage whisper. “I’m good. But it’s nice to have at least one friend I can count on.”

Andres shook his head. “I tried talking to him, Kate. You know I tried. He’s got his head up his ass about that band of his.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Victor shouted.

“Tomorrow. Eleven a.m.” I walked toward my car and left the two men arguing by the truck.

T
he next day, I sat in a comfortable chair amid the still-halted construction of the Club Car restaurant, conducting interview after interview. It was hard to tell them apart. Ilena, Roman, and Doug all said the exact same thing, each using the words “hip” and “exclusive” with the same inflection, in that rehearsed, talking-points way of political pundits on Sunday morning talk shows.

Vera’s interview was the only exception. She talked about the restaurant the way someone else might talk about a lover, with giggly enthusiasm and unbridled optimism. Only she seemed to see the place as something other than an extension of her ego. In that moment I hoped Doug had been telling the truth: The phone calls to Vera were from a crazy old girlfriend who hoped to break them up. Looking at Doug it was hard to imagine he inspired that kind of passion, but then I never knew what anyone saw in anyone.

After the sit-down interviews, we broke for lunch. Ilena had arranged for a buffet from some Greek fusion restaurant. She told me it was “the best Greek food you will taste in your life, outside of Santorini.” I’ve never been to Greece, but based on how good the food was, my guess was she was right.

“This is such a treat for us, to have you here, telling our story,” Ilena told me as we ate. “It was so unexpected that anyone would be interested in our little restaurant.”

“I was under the impression you arranged it with a friend at the Business Channel.”

“I made a call,” she admitted. “But I didn’t expect to be chosen.”

“They must have thought the place would be something special,” I said. No sense in becoming enemies this early in the shoot. There was plenty of time for that when I was in editing.

We ate in silence for a few minutes. I watched her watch Roman as he strutted around the place, arguing with Erik about what the waitstaff should wear. Erik had special-ordered uniforms—black pants and
short-waisted white coats with black ties, something he’d seen in 1930s movies. Roman thought the white coats would be too hard to keep clean. He said it was a waste of money. A dull subject, but the two men were quite heated about it. At one point Roman grabbed Erik’s shirt and pushed him against the wall.